


Something Broke Inside (I Forgive You)

by jenny_wren



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: #coulsonlives, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 12:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2507966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_wren/pseuds/jenny_wren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It occurred to me that the only thing sadder than a Clint who cannot forgive Coulson for lying about his own death, is a Clint who can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Broke Inside (I Forgive You)

Natasha stared at the two men in front of her as the pieces fell into place click-click-click.

“Give me one good reason not to kill you.”

On the couch, Clint jerked upright from his place snuggled into Coulson’s side.

“No, no, no Natasha. This is really Phil. Honest. Isn’t it great? He was alive all this time.”

Coulson didn’t move from his seat on the sofa, legs outstretched to rest on the coffee table and crossed at the ankle. He smiled his small confident Coulson smile.

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

“Stark had him all checked out and stuff,” Clint babbled, “it’s definitely Phil. Isn’t it great?” He laughed out loud and Natasha wondered if she was the only one who could hear the broken edges grinding beneath it.

“I know,” she snapped, she was not an idiot. “ _That’s_ why I’m going to kill him.”

“You knew?” Clint’s face fell in on itself until she could see the bones beneath the skin. The death’s head grinned as all skulls do.

“No,” she said more gently and Clint relaxed again, smiling at her gratefully. “No I didn’t know, because if I had known I would have already killed him so that he was no longer lying to you.”

“A mite drastic don’t you think,” said Coulson lightly. He must know that he had foiled that excellent plan by his reappearance. 

Natasha didn’t say anything, just folded her arms.

“My recovery was classified on a need to know basis.”

She had no idea how Coulson could miss the way Clint’s whole body twisted like a slug in salt at the idea of him not needing to know that Coulson was alive. Maybe he didn’t miss it, maybe he just didn’t care. Regardless, Natasha couldn’t stand there and listen to his justifications cut away at Clint,

“It’s late and I’ve interrupted you. I’ll speak you tomorrow.” Unless she could somehow summon up a mission between now and then.

“Oh-okay,” Clint faltered, one hand pressing hard against his mouth. Natasha was certain he could see bloody mess left inside her by the rupture of the trust she had rebuilt her life around. Just as she could see all that was left of him after the uprooting of everything he believed in was a painfully fragile shell around a gaping emptiness. “It’s great, isn’t it?”

Natasha inclined her head because there were no words that were not screams.

 

The next morning she reached the communal quarters in the Tower early because she had not slept, and discovered Stark, in ratty jeans and t-shirt, mainlining coffee and tapping away at two different tablets, clearly still on an inventing jag from the day before.

“Hey, how’s it going, River?”

Natasha’s grip tightened around her mug until she could see the white tendons gleam beneath her skin. Clint had taken her aside and explained privately where that particular nickname had come from because he didn’t want her finding out by accident. He’d told Stark to stop calling her that, but Stark apparently couldn’t see why she wouldn’t enjoy jokes about a young ballerina being experimented into psychosis and brainwashed into an assassin.

It was only knowing that Phil’s dying wish was for the Avengers to be a success that had stopped her smashing his head into the table top and breaking his nose on the fancy tablet.

Of course now Coulson has shown up, that wasn’t a consideration any more. But habit had kept her silent while Stark babbled on.

“You found out about our new house guest. What am I saying? Of course you know about Agent. You know everything.”

Reminded that Stark was a mere annoyance and it was Coulson she wanted dead, Natasha refocused,

“So who knew?” she asked, determined to find out how deep the betrayal lay.

“Fury, obviously.”

It was obvious, and it still stung.

“Agent’s new team. I’m not sure if you know them, they’re all the cutest little baby agents. Oh wait, it’s hard to tell because she’s totally banging for her age, but Melinda May’s apparently vintage.”

The Cavalry. Natasha folded a little more into herself, because Melinda at least should know the devastation left by a failed mission and the knowledge you had one of your team’s blood on your hands. How she could she abandon Natasha and Clint to that?

“And guess who else? Maria bossy-boots Hill. Blasted woman claims to work for me and she’s keeping _that_ under her hat.”

Natasha had given her support to Hill when she was the new and untried Deputy-Director. Maria was somebody Natasha would have called a friend. 

With all those people knowing, with Coulson having a whole new team, then all the high clearance admin staff would have known, same with communication, and analysis, and –

The betrayal was absolute.

Natasha watched Stark blankly as he ranted on about Hill. She no longer wondered at the lack of anger in Clint. She was far too worn thin and frayed to feel something as vibrant as anger.

Eventually Stark diverted off into his own technological world and stumbled away still trying to type on both tablets, while drinking a mug of coffee and talking to Jarvis. 

Natasha was too exhausted to move and stayed in the kitchen staring out the window at the empty sky until Clint found her there.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“Isn’t it great? Phil being alive all this time?”

She could not lash out at Clint as she would at Coulson. She wondered if this is why he sent Clint to talk to her. Still all the control in the world couldn’t stop, “It would be considerably more great if he had bothered to let us know,” from slipping out.

“He explained all that.”

“Oh?”

“It was need to know for the security of SHIELD.”

Given all the people who knew about Coulson’s resurrection, she’d like to know how two more would make such a difference. Especially as she and Clint had kept worse secrets for Phil.

“SHIELD needed the Avengers to gel together as a team. They couldn’t do that with the two of us keeping secrets.”

Natasha refrained from pointing out that they could simply have told all the Avengers because she knew Clint had already thought that but has chosen to disregard it for some reason.

“He made a mistake and regrets it.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. If you make the same mistake every day for two years she was pretty sure it became a lifestyle choice.

“He was all messed up after the surgery shit Fury pulled to drag him back into the land of living.”

That one she would find both believable and acceptable, had Coulson condescended to reappear before the three month mark.

“He’s had an awful time of it. He was devastated when he thought I’d died.”

“You died?”

“The last mission was a bad one, I was off comms for three hours until I could steal a mobile phone.”

She nodded and didn’t say anything about Clint having an awful time of it and being devastated because he thought Coulson was dead, devastated for two years compared to Coulson’s measly three hours. The effort was too much for her. Just sitting here keeping breathing was taking everything she had.

“He’s alive and back with me. I should be grateful for that.”

Natasha tilted her head and squinted at him because it suddenly struck her that Clint didn’t believe a word of this. She’d known, of course, that he didn’t, but she didn’t realize until right this minute that _he_ knew he didn’t buy the choppy list of feeble excuses.

Under her scrutiny he sighed and collapsed completely until the table was all that holding him, as huddled and shapeless as a discarded jacket.

“And it’s my fault he didn’t say anything before,” he whispered.

“What! No! Loki was not your fault.”

“I don’t mean Loki, I mean the not telling. He thought I was security risk. That I wouldn’t keep his revival a secret. Otherwise why wouldn’t he tell me? It was all my fault. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Natasha had several answers to that.

“And he’s alive. It’s a second chance. I can do better this time. I’ll be better and he won’t leave me again.”

Natasha was caught in a graphic fantasy of Coulson’s death taking _weeks_. It was so vivid she could smell the blood. 

“He can’t leave me again,” Clint said softly and it cut right through the violence.

Natasha placed her hand on his wrist, thumb resting over his pulse and they sat together quietly until Stark blundered back in search of pancakes.

 

She wasn’t as shattered as Clint but Natasha couldn’t help but wish for Phil, the steady presence a wild young man who would become her best friend had presented to her as a promise of security and safety. Phil who cared for them both, who would never leave them swinging in the wind.

She watched carefully for weeks but all she could see was Coulson who abandoned them because Nick Fury told him to and then ran off to play at being James Bond.

Natasha loved Phil even if he’d never existed and Coulson is going to regret deceiving her. Coulson wants only one thing, to recreate SHIELD without the taint of Hydra.

Natasha is going to make sure he fails.


End file.
